LONDON — For one last time, on a perfect night in this loveliest of cities, they rocked the joint with the sheer possibility of youth.

The first of them burst into a run when they entered the field. They all took pictures of one another and then took pictures of themselves taking pictures. They danced. Some of them rode piggyback on big shoulders. One girl held aloft a homemade sign that read, “Thanks coach.”

As they had been, 10,000-strong, throughout the Games — reaching for the sky, generous with each other, proud of family and teammates and country, full of the raging emotions of their age — so they were again, this one last time.

Now, there were distractions, a distracting number of them.

The closing ceremony of the London Olympics was filled with the long list of stars and great pop names this nation has given the world, many of the iconic anthems themselves performed by younger counterparts.

But not all the big names were reasonable, if younger, facsimiles: Ray Davies and the Kinks came to sing one of their greatest, Waterloo Sunset, with a little help from the London Symphony Orchestra; Annie Lennox did a party turn as the figurehead of a great ship and sang Little Bird; George Michael was there, looking terrific; Brian May and Roger Taylor from Queen sang We Will Rock You; John Lennon, circa 1971, made a ghostly appearance singing Imagine, in a re-mastering of his paean to peace done especially for the Games by his widow, Yoko Ono, and of course so did the island’s beloved Spice Girls, allegedly reunited this one time only, which sounds a little too like one of those going out of business signs you see for years on end in store windows, but never mind.

It was brilliant, never nostalgic (because of the infusion of stars like Fatboy Slim, the Kaiser Chiefs in the role of The Who until the actual The Who emerged to close the show, and the Brit band Beady Eye, among others), and delightful.

Most of the talent, who were working for the magnificent fee of a pound each, arrived at the field in London’s iconic taxis.

There were plenty of the usual gee-gaws and tricks of such giant, television-driven modern gatherings — gymnasts and dancers up the yin-yang, balloons, lights and smoke and explosions going off, a tightrope walker, lots and lots of people and vehicles, from cabs to flatbed trucks and gorgeous ragtops, wandering about on the field — with the added mix of pomp and punk that only the British can really pull off, never better than when the Household Division Ceremonial State Band was marching up and down the track while the Pet Shop Boys belted out West End Girls.

There was one spectacularly weird and very British bit (well alright there were many, but this took the cake), when eight farm tractors suddenly appeared, pulling super-sized billboards of eight famous Brit supermodels, most notably Kate Moss and Naomi Campbell.

When the curtains were pulled off the billboards, there were the supermodels themselves, who proceeded to strut on the biggest catwalk on the planet, in full sulk and dressed in golden designer clothes.

The models then did their events, and Moss and Campbell, like Olympians themselves, are the best in their games, Moss most famous as the epitome of heroin chic, Campbell known for cellphone throwing. Reliable reports have the leggy duo turning in what is known in these parts as an SB, or season’s best.

But as a wise woman of my acquaintance recently noted, if what she calls “slutty swimming” (that would be a reference, albeit cruel, to the girls of synchronized swimming, with their big makeup and glitz) is an Olympic event, so then perhaps should pouting and hips-first pelvic-tilt walking be one — all done in stilettos.

It’s like all those other games the world has watched for two weeks — made to look easy only by those who work their tails off at it.

So there was lots to look at, but still, it was to the splendid athletes — who for 16 summer days here smashed records, won medals and broke hearts, sometimes their own — that the show really belonged, as it should have.

To take a liberty with the chorus of the famous Madness song that became a touchstone in the stadium, it was decidedly their house, the house of athletes, and home of the young.

As is tradition, the victory ceremony for the men’s marathon, run only Sunday on the hottest day of the Games, was held during the closing ceremony. The sweet face of winner Stephen Kiprotich, who left his Ugandan home at 17 to train with the world-beater Kenyan runners, two of whom he beat to get gold, was a reminder of all the athletic sacrifices in the building.

“Heroism and heartbreak,” Seb Coe, the legendary British runner and the driving force behind these Games, said at one point.

There was plenty of both here.

But any time 80,000 people sing, without any prompting, the words to the funny old Monty Python song Always Look on the Bright Side of Life — led by the group’s creator and comic genius Eric Idle — it’s hard to do otherwise.

Thank you, Britain. Thank you, London. And carpe diem.

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One more glorious evening in London: A spectacular closing ceremony ends 16 great days

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